The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick

[Imbalance]

Metroid is Sci-fi. The limits of what counts as plausible are different for that.

I beg to differ. Would it not be plausible to have magical protections over doors that are indistinguishable from alien locking mechanisms? (Truthfully, the very first time I saw Metroid played, I interpreted that the character was using a magic wand to pop magic bubbles, and the enemy sprites looked less like aliens than swooping dragons and the like.)

Had that been established, my complaint would be void, but TES has only rare instances, usually in the form of magical traps, that would prevent a door or chest being destroyed as a method of access. The nearest matter of lore that was ever talked about is ironwood, which is supposed to grow in Skyrim, yet is not even mentioned in that game. If the lore would establish that all wood is ironwood, they would have to backpedal about every shipwreck and damaged crate. They don't even bother to hand wave it, though, when other games make a feature of it with ease. If disarming a lock is only possible with a blanket stealth or magic check, given the heaps of other lore about the franchise, an explanation would be welcome, even one as thin as the law against levitation. As it stands, it's pure negligence that no item in the 800 lbs. of gear that I'm perfectly able to carry could possibly be used to even pry at a lock or hinge, much less burn or break the wood away from it..

[Keltest]

I beg to differ. Would it not be plausible to have magical protections over doors that are indistinguishable from alien locking mechanisms? (Truthfully, the very first time I saw Metroid played, I interpreted that the character was using a magic wand to pop magic bubbles, and the enemy sprites looked less like aliens than swooping dragons and the like.)

Had that been established, my complaint would be void, but TES has only rare instances, usually in the form of magical traps, that would prevent a door or chest being destroyed as a method of access. The nearest matter of lore that was ever talked about is ironwood, which is supposed to grow in Skyrim, yet is not even mentioned in that game. If the lore would establish that all wood is ironwood, they would have to backpedal about every shipwreck and damaged crate. They don't even bother to hand wave it, though, when other games make a feature of it with ease. If disarming a lock is only possible with a blanket stealth or magic check, given the heaps of other lore about the franchise, an explanation would be welcome, even one as thin as the law against levitation. As it stands, it's pure negligence that no item in the 800 lbs. of gear that I'm perfectly able to carry could possibly be used to even pry at a lock or hinge, much less burn or break the wood away from it..

Sure. However, while Samus is not an expert forcefield technician, your character could plausibly be an archmagi of incredible power in a fantasy setting. You could plausibly be an expert in magical barriers, less so in alien tech barriers.

[deuterio12]

Kingdoms of Amalur (rememember that one, was supposed to be the Elder Scrolls killer) did have some chests/doors protected by magic wards instead of physical locks.

That demanded the separate Dispel Skill and its own minigame. Still it had some interesting details to make it different from just "magic lockpicking":
-It could be used in some quests to break magic charms on NPCs.
-There was a "brute force" option that 100% broke the magic ward, but also chance of it blowing up in your face, dealing big damage and applying a nasty curse if you survived that could only be removed in town by paying a significant amount of gold to a Healer NPC (guess you can't dispel yourself).

Xenoblades Chronicles 2 has doors/chests blocked by all sorts of exotic stuff that each demand the party to have a certain combination/level of (field) skills to open (Lockpicking being one of them, but something like a fallen tree would demand fire skill, a buried chest would demand digging, dark curses would demand Light, hidden complicated stuff would demand Keen Eye+Focus, etc). Alas besides a few exceptions there were no alternate methods for each such obstacle, either you had the exact right skills, or you couldn't open the door/chest at all.

[LibraryOgre]

Of course, in Arena, you could also destroy walls with a spell.

[factotum]

Kingdoms of Amalur (rememember that one, was supposed to be the Elder Scrolls killer) did have some chests/doors protected by magic wards instead of physical locks.

Supposed by whom? Don't get me wrong, KoA was fun for 50 hours or so--just a shame the main plot took 66 hours to complete, those last few hours were a *real* slog! Even Yahtzee in his "Zero Punctuation" review called KoA "Baby's first Skyrim"...

[deuterio12]

Supposed by whom? Don't get me wrong, KoA was fun for 50 hours or so--just a shame the main plot took 66 hours to complete, those last few hours were a *real* slog! Even Yahtzee in his "Zero Punctuation" review called KoA "Baby's first Skyrim"...

Yathzee has often been a man ahead of his time, but when KoA did come out quite a lot of people did consider it a serious competitor to Skyrim.

[Lord Raziere]

Ah, Amalur.....the game with a good combat system, an original idea by making a protagonist that wasn't apart of fate and in fact actively destroyed it instead of being another stupid chosen one, cool weapons to wield like chakrams and reavers, and celtic fae lore rather than the tolkien elves we get now. sad that its actual execution of the story and characters was lacking, it had the creepy blank expression syndrome, and that it simply wasn't good enough to continue.

I admit, wasn't the best game, but I do have some fond memories of it, I find it similar to things like the Force unleashed or Asura's wrath in how cool its combat was. skyrim's combat is....uh....well lets just say there is a reason I delved into mods to try and make it more exciting. and reasons why I'm playing things like monster hunter, dark souls or whatever instead, assuming I don't have some indie game to play. I've been basically taking a break from (my heavily modded, in some places glitchy) skyrim until I feel like playing it again for like, a few months now.

mostly for a change of pace, I guess? while I like the mods I installed, it can be bit of a pain to deal with them sometimes, and I want to save some mod slots for beyond skyrim mods in development. perhaps someday I'll come back to Rakarys and resume my broken high elf mage adventures, but not yet.

but yeah, KoA was a few good ideas that just didn't have good enough execution in my opinion.

[Morty]

I think the lockpicking issue boils down to this:

1. Lockpicking is too narrow to stand on its own, applying only to two types of obstacles. This is particularly problematic in a game where you need to use a skill a lot to advance it.
2. Those obstacles are usually treasure chests, which makes lockpicking just a mini-game in front of loot. Plot-relevant doors tend to be impossible or arbitrarily difficult to unlock, requiring a key. Thus there's a pretty narrow legitimate application of doors that you can open for some kind of advantage over going around it or finding a key.
3. The plot-locked doors often suffer from immersion problems due to not being able to break them or bypass them. They're often flimsy or part of a rickety fence that an able-bodied person ought to be able to clear without difficulty. I don't see it as a major problem, personally, because I realize that the player's impact on the environment has to be restricted. I take complaints that start with "But I want to use my super-awesome magic to..." even less seriously. But it is nonetheless there and expecting an open-world game not to rely on lazy "this door is locked" barriers is a valid complaint.
4. In Skyrim, there's no opportunity cost to lockpicking, so every single character will be roughly as good at it as the next one. In the other games, having either the skill or lock-opening spells becomes a tax required to obtain loot, see point 1).

The best option I see is folding it into a larger skill and drastically reducing the number of locks in the game. Make it so that every so often, being able to open a door without a key is advantageous, but don't make a big deal out of it. Presumably it's a lot more useful if you've joined the Thieves' Guild or the local assassination club.

[Calemyr]

KoA was great, I felt. For the first half of the game. Then the crafting system caps out midway through and the gameplay goes stale quickly after that, and the plot doesn't ramp up enough to make up for that.

On the topic of Skyrim, however, I'm planning to pull a "narrative" run of the game and I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on how to improve it.

Spoiler: Narrative Run

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The Premise: While Basil Zachary is known in legends as the Dragonborn, who seemingly appeared out of nowhere in Helgen and all but single-handedly ended the dragon crisis, his story actually starts a couple years earlier, when he helped found the Explorer's Society - a guild of archaeologists and historians based out of a museum in Solitude. As guild master of the Society, his adventures spanned Skyrim and even beyond before the civil war and the dragons reared their ugly heads. If one were to pick a point where things went off the rails, however, it wasn't the incident at Helgen - it was the day guildmaster of the Explorer's Society took on an apprentice, a Cyrodiilic scholar by the name of Lucien Flavius. More would come in time, but this was where the balance changed: one overly curious troublemaker was bad enough, two was more than Skyrim could take.

Major Mods:
* Legacy of the Dragonborn (the backbone of the run, other mods were mostly selected on compatability with this)
* Live Another Life (Start the game as Guildmaster of the Explorer's Society rather than in Helgen)
* Moonpath to Elsewhere
* Moon and Star
* Falskaar
* Rigmor of Bruma
* Rigmor of Cyrodiil (+ Dragonchild)
* Lucien

Fellow Explorers (Using Amazing Follower Tweaks)
* Lucien
* Serana
* Rigmor (When applicable)
One of the following (not sure which, yet):
* Inigo (yet another scoundrel looking for trouble)
* Recorder (yet another historian, albeit with a somewhat different perspective on events)
* Hoth (a bounty hunter less interested in archaeology and more in the big game Basil and Lucien attract)

I've played the Legacy of Dragonborn and Rigmor mods before, but I haven't played Legacy's fifth version yet (supposedly a massive overhaul) and I'm looking to tackle Rigmor's story from another angle this time. If there's interest, I might try to do a let's play of the run as a creative writing exercise but I'm not certain on that, yet.

Anyway, does anyone have any ideas or opinions on this run? Any thoughts as to who the fourth companion should be, between Inigo, Recorder, and Hoth?

[Triaxx]

I mean, Rigmor's fun, even if the dialogue hurts my brain in places. I've seen several people play with Inigo, but no one play with Hoth so that'd be cool.

Looks like a fun setup. Feel free to creatively write it if you like, I'd be interested.

[Calemyr]

I mean, Rigmor's fun, even if the dialogue hurts my brain in places. I've seen several people play with Inigo, but no one play with Hoth so that'd be cool.

Looks like a fun setup. Feel free to creatively write it if you like, I'd be interested.

Rigmor of Bruma is hard, no argument. I cringe whenever she says "Pfft, whatever.". Cyrodiil is much better both in story and the immense achievement of recreating Cyrodiil in Skyrim, but still not without its faults. It is, however, a nice capstone to the Dragonborn saga, since Skyrim doesn't make any effort to conclude it.

Inigo is my least favorite of the option for the last member, I'll be honest, largely because I've used him before and so his constant talking is older than the others. Never played Hoth at all, so I don't know what to expect. However, it could be interesting.

[Rynjin]

I've tried to play with RIgmor a few times but its seems to be terminally incompatible with every mod on the Nexus for whatever reason.

[veti]

I've tried to play with RIgmor a few times but its seems to be terminally incompatible with every mod on the Nexus for whatever reason.

That's a... slight exaggeration. It does make quite a few terrain edits, which means there's a strong chance of conflict with other mods that do the same (Wintersun, specifically, tripped me up like that). And it needs a patch (which doesn't exist SFAIAA) to work with Open Cities. But apart from that, I have no problem playing it with sixty or so other mods.

[Rynjin]

It's also partially incompatible with mods that alter the armor loot tables as well, given Immersive Armors borks it. It just never seemed worth the hassle to find which of all the mods I use as part of my "standard package" needed compatibility patches (which aren't usually even available on the mod pages, but as standalone fixes) for what is essentially a glorified companion mod.

[veti]

Rigmor of Cyrodiil - kinda breaks every other quest (except Dragonchild, obviously). It simply makes no sense for the emperor to be running around doing that sort of thing personally. Anything less than leading an army - should be simply beneath him, at that point.

With so many huge content mods, I would think you'd be insanely over-levelled before you complete the half of it. I mean - Falskaar, seriously? I assume you mean to avoid Helgen entirely, but even so - by the time you've done any three of those, you'll be able to take out any foe in the game. In your pajamas.

[Triaxx]

It's only during the start up process, during which you have Rigmor disabled, then once IA's done you can re-enable it. On the other hand, it will break the game when the Greybeards shout your name if it's installed, but not enabled. So that's fun.

[Calemyr]

Rigmor of Cyrodiil - kinda breaks every other quest (except Dragonchild, obviously). It simply makes no sense for the emperor to be running around doing that sort of thing personally. Anything less than leading an army - should be simply beneath him, at that point.

The Dragonborn reminds me heavily of Klaus Wulfenbach from the webcomic Girl Genius.
Aide: "Sir, you have an army."
Klaus: "Yes, but there are things I am better suited to do alone."
Aide: "Like what, sir?"
Klaus: "Like fighting a war."

In my head, I felt my character roaring in frustration over peoples' insistence on providing him with troops: "Do you have any idea how much you are shackling me? I'm a Master-ranked destruction mage! Let me walk in, alone, and I can level any army they care to field! All you're offering me is the choice between relative uselessness or massive friendly fire casualties." So the missions where Dragonborn did things on his own were actually a gift in his mind. And, amusingly, I thought it worked very well in just the reverse: by shackling him with an army, my Dragonborn had to learn to be a team player.

With so many huge content mods, I would think you'd be insanely over-levelled before you complete the half of it. I mean - Falskaar, seriously? I assume you mean to avoid Helgen entirely, but even so - by the time you've done any three of those, you'll be able to take out any foe in the game. In your pajamas.

It only gets worse as I'm a serial crafting abuser, it's one of the major things that I enjoy of the game. I should just be glad I need the unofficial patch, or I get a kick out of the restoration bug and then I'd be one-punching dragons... That said, I'm interested if I can create a functional story from the disparate pieces, even if it's only in my own head, not in difficulty. Having a four member party for the most part won't make it any harder, either. Which doesn't bother me much, because Skyrim never struck me as a game where the difficulty was fun - it turns bullet spongey and tedious, not intense and lively.

[Triaxx]

My response to that was basically to become a powerful, but supremely squishy wizard. I'm a one hit kill mostly, but if I get the first blow, game over man, game OVER! Makes it quite fun, even when the game cheats.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

by the time you've done any three of those, you'll be able to take out any foe in the game. In your pajamas.

...is there a mod that adds pajamas? Because that sounds like lots of fun.

[veti]

...is there a mod that adds pajamas? Because that sounds like lots of fun.

Lucia has started giving me robes, about once a week or so. I've got a red one, a green one and a blue one now. No idea why, but she's decided I need a robe collection. I've taken to wearing one of them when I go to bed.

[Lord Raziere]

anyone else update their skyrim script extender, but when they do so, the game still says the script extender isn't working and thus skyui5 can't work? has there been an update to Skyrim SE that skse hasn't patched yet?

Edit: good news, I've figured out the problem, I didn't transfer one form .dll files over when updating and fixed it, now runs without problems.

[Balmas]

So, to fill the void of the forums being down, I decided to start a new Skyrim playthrough. I'm playing as pure a mage as possible. Although I might advance other skill trees purely in the course of play, the only skills that can have perks are the five magic skills, plus illusion, enchanting, and lockpicking. What's more, I'm using YASH--a mod meant to make everything in Skyrim more hardcore and character-skill-based. For instance, if you have a low skill in heavy armor, you're not going to be able to just pick up and use a suit of daedric armor right out of Helgen.

And as is tradition, I wrote up a few small logs to accompany it.

Spoiler: The Adventures of Merlin

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Merlin arrives in Skyrim in the port of Solitude, clutching a parcel from his old college friend Auryen. Inside, a letter explaining how Auryen received a massive stone edifice near the Blue Palace, and 500 septims for travel expenses. Not much to fund a major lifestyle change, but Merlin is not too demanding, and is comforted by the promise of room and board at the museum.

Along the way, towards the main gate of the city, he marvels at the high, stone walls and commanding view of the harbor and its many shops. Time enough to visit those later, once he's established himself. Not like he can buy much with 500 septims, anyway.

The civil war came as quite a shock to Merlin, and the execution he witnesses on entering the city is a harsh reminder of the new reality he inhabits. How much can change on a three month voyage at sea, he reflects. The world at war, the foolish Nords at each others' throats, and here he is, getting set up in the middle of it. But it's not his fight; whether or not the Empire or the-- what had the guard called them? Stormcloaks? Who was in charge mattered little. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Auryen greets him warmly, and shows him around the museum. Merlin has to admit, it's a stunning edifice, with an entire dome of glass, soaring staircases, and... He gulps. Row after row of plaques, plinths, displays. All empty, and all of which it will be his job to fill. It occurs to Merlin that perhaps Auryen has a different memory of their time in academia; most of his own memories of college glow with alcohol-fueled haziness. Oh, he learned the standard array of magical party tricks, and he has an admittedly good head for directions, but surely Auryen doesn't think that qualifies him for a trek out through Skyrim during a civil war, right?

Right?

***

Merlin falls to his knees, sword clanging to the ground out of his limp, sweaty hands. It was a long fight, full of valor and terror, but at last, the foe lies slain at his feet.

And Merlin was sure that if the fox could have fought back, he'd have surely been dead half an hour ago.

He chuckles, and collects the fox. Surely someone will pay a few septims for the hide, and those are septims he brutally needs.

It has been… a busy, if relaxing few days. If he has any hope of surviving the wilds of Skyrim, he must train. And so he flits back and forth. Long walks around Solitude, collecting alchemical reagents. Back to the museum, where what little alchemical knowledge he remembers from his college days serves to turn flowers into potions. Like the fox, the potions aren't worth much, but it's a steady income source.

Not enough to replace what he uses in expenses, though. Sybille Stentor rolls her eyes as he peruses her selection of magical tomes, but he knows that even with Auryen's donation, he only has about a thousand septims.

Ninety-four, now. Ninety-four measly septims, with which to fund an expedition to retrieve every magical artifact in Skyrim. And what has he to show for it?

A pair of spellbooks that, at the time, had seemed promising. A skeletal warrior to fight on his behalf means he'll not need to stain his clothes with blood and dirt, and the entertainingly-titled-"Prepare for Adventure!" promises to supply him with a clean robe and staff if the unthinkable happens and his precious chainmail gets soiled.

If only he had the magicka or skill necessary to cast either. On one memorable long walk, he doses up on some mead--the Nords may be foolish, but they know their alcohol--and, to his astonishment, discovers that the haze 'round his eyes seems to make the motions easier somehow, and out pops a fully-formed skeleton.

Delighted, he cackles and begins to cast it again and again, as quickly as his breton blood will allow. This could work! A skeletal minion to shield him from blows and execute enemies on his behalf!

Now he just needs to learn to reliably cast it, and he'll be capable of making the long trek to Winterhold, where Sybille Stentor informs him lies a local magical college of sorts. The bandit disguised as a carriage driver demanded fifty gold to ferry him there, and Merlin sure as hell won't pay half his remaining gold just to skip a trip.***Merlin slams the door of the Dragon's Bridge inn, and slumps into a seat. Never again. He's never leaving the city again. This is his life now. He lives here, in the inn, with his ninety-four septims, because the prospect of homelessness and a slow death of starvation seems, at the moment, preferable to the alternative of braving the walk back down the road to Solitude.

"The roads," he mutters irritably, "are a friggin nightmare. Why does anybody live here? Noone should live in Skyrim." This should be a barren wasteland, full of nothing but ice, snow, and deer terrified of the approximately ten thousand wolves on the road.

Oh, sure, sure, summon a skeleton, they seemed to say. That'll go well, and totally won't use all of your magicka. Oooh, you even managed to complete the spell successfully, well done you. And that's great! Wonderful! Watch us tear it apart in a matter of seconds. I'm sure you can survive for a minute while your magicka returns.

He didn't know it was even possible for a wolf to grin.

Groaning, he buries his head in his arms and waves away the bartender. Lucky that Imperial patrol was passing by, or he'd doubtless be wolf chow by now. Maybe fifty gold for passage to Winterhold isn't that bad of an idea after all.

***

Merlin clings to the roof over Morthal's token gateway, and curses himself for not simply paying the carriage driver's ransom price. Now all that stands between him and the burning, acidic venom of the horse-sized spider beneath him are some increasingly flimsy-looking shingles. To make matters worse, some wolves are also here. Because of course they are. And despite all logical arguments saying that this should not be so, the wolves and the spider have drawn up a truce that they'll not fight each other until they've finished killing him.How very lucky for him.

He's still not mastered the spell found in Prepare for Adventure, so all he can do is cling to the icy roof and, as time permits, occasionally raise a frozen hand and struggle to form the necessary signs to summon a skeleton. On the seventh attempt, he finally succeeds… only to have the skeleton quickly get swarmed.

Well. Might as well have a drink, because he's not getting out of this one. He bought the Honingbrew back in Solitude, and his death seems like a special enough of an occasion that it merits the special booze.

Skeleton summoning attempt #8. Failure. Suggests that attempt #8 was a fluke. Bother. He groans, and reaches out for the magicka again. He's already dead. Might as well give Prepare for Adventure another attempt.

With a rush, his chainmail disappears, and he finds a robe of softest silk coating his softer body. And it's enchanted! And a staff settles into his fingers! Hard to aim when clung to a roof, but… But the extra magic and recharge rate are the difference he needs. Hell, he might even survive the day.

***

Merlin stares over the boulder at his prospective path, and wonders why, exactly, he said yes to that miner in Dawnstar. He's an undergrad, and one who barely passed at that. He has no business wandering out into the wilds to retrieve a sister, lost or not. Even the idea of diving into a cave for that kooky old alchemist's lost pure mixture ring makes more sense, because at least then he could bring an artifact back to the museum.

Rieklings on one side. Abandoned, crumbling fort full of archers and mages on the other.

Merlin nods. He has a plan, and it involves a long walk in the opposite direction, because suicide is not in the cards today, and that's what's in front of him right now. It's a long walk, and most of it is just him clinging to sheer-drop cliffs, but it's a route that's devoid of wolves, rieklings, or bandits, and that's what he's really after today.

Of course the lost sister is fighting a trio of bandits. Of course she is. Why wouldn't she be? At least he can be glad none of them have a bow, which means he can climb a tree and just summon skeletons at them until the issue is resolved. And Tigrid even seems impressed! Or at least, embarrassed enough that he and she can mutually ignore each others' incompetence in favor of "Thank Arkay we're alive."

In the intervening month or so, Merlin has since grown to the early level 30s, specializing in conjuration, destruction, and alchemy. It's a funny thing, really, but restoration hasn't been as useful as I thought--then again, when most things in the game will one-shot you, healing is less useful than you'd think.

[Lord Raziere]

Meanwhile in Adventures In Hyper-Modding:
I figured out that the reason why everything is so bright is because I was using a outdated dagi-raht mod. updated it and now instead of the entire sky being blinding white and ground looking like its bleached by some sci-fi radioactive light, now the clouds and everything just look really fiery and glowy for some reason and now I can actually see blue in the sky and the ground isn't as radiant! hooray, mild improvement! now to figure out how to solve the other half of why things are too bright and bloomy.

been playing Bruma, its good, feels like an actual part of the game. like one could totally see Bruma being an actual DLC with how good it is. the guards somehow seem to be hypercompetent with figuring out I did a crime though, I stealth-slit an annoying bards throat successfully and they somehow figured it out. thankfully my character is a rich vampire high elf and can pay off whatever crime they get accused of, 1000 gold isn't even a problem. also picked up a khajit follower who is the closest thing a person can get to robin hood. cool.

other than that just gradually adding in new mods I've been interested in.

[veti]

the only skills that can have perks are the five magic skills, plus illusion, enchanting, and lockpicking.

How are illusion and enchanting *not* magic skills?

And what perks do you want in lockpicking?

[Aeson]

How are illusion and enchanting *not* magic skills?

I suspect that Balmas meant Alchemy instead of Illusion, and the way in which Enchanting is not a magic skill is that it's not a spellcasting skill.

[Balmas]

Aye, bit of a mispost there. And I'm taking perks in lockpicking because I despise the minigame, and Ordinator makes it so that once you reach 100 lockpicking, you can take a perk to never have to pick any non-master locks ever again.

[Rynjin]

That's small thinking. The big brain solution is to download Tomebound and magically unlock things.

[Triaxx]

I have never understood the distaste for the minigame. It's like you don't even remember Oblivion's.

[Keltest]

I have never understood the distaste for the minigame. It's like you don't even remember Oblivion's.

Oblivion had the auto-attempt button and the skeleton key. If you didn't like it, you could just spam the skip button until it worked.

[LibraryOgre]

I have never understood the distaste for the minigame. It's like you don't even remember Oblivion's.

Oblivion being annoying does not preclude Skyrim being annoying. I don't mind as much, but, yeah, eventually, I just wanna get past the locks.